We are marvelously multi-faceted.
no one is one-dimensional or even two-dimensioal
There are so many aspects of my existence that show up in the clearest light: abused child, brilliant child, musician, teacher, poet, writer of both fiction and non-fiction, brother, uncle, boyfriend, confidant, advisor, godfather, monk, priest, advisor, and a few other aspects that I’m not going to mention here. They exist across time, but when I let myself see them all together this way, it helps me understand so much more about the mystery of who I am.
It’s vitally important for us to realize that all the aspects of our person-hood fit together in the realm of God’s grace., and therefore our journey towards wholeness requires that we learn to see ourselves as unique and multi-faceted.
The Psalm says that God “knits us together in our mothers’ wombs.” There are a number of ways to consider this:
First, God doesn’t limit Himself to only one colored yarn. He uses an infinite number of colors, some of which we’ll only be able to recognize in the life to come.
Second, that even God can sometimes drop a stitch but still keep going. Those imperfections help establish our individuality. They might be “personality quirks” or neuroses or special gifts, or parts of ourselves that we have to accept as part of God’s plan for us.
Third, this is particularly important for LGBTQ+ persons to realize. All the theories about how this came about or, to use Ratzinger’s horrible phrase, how we were “intrinsically disordered,” miss the point: God is the one who “knitted” us this way before we were even born. God loves what He has made. Our identities are ordered, not disordered.
Finally, I’ve written this before but it’s important to state it again. The question of sexuality cannot be reduced to a straight/gay paradox, or even a spectrum. We must view sexuality as what can been seen through a Kaleidescope: an infinite number of varied pieces, all beautiful, all distincitive, all fit together in one splendid display. We must realize that we simply do not have the vocabulary to give each variant a name. We must assign anyone an insufficient label that obliterates his or her particular God-given uniqueness.